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Education should shape world view: Patnaik

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: “The purpose of education does not end with the mere imparting of knowledge. It goes on to something deeper; the changing of a person’s world view,” said Prabhat Patnaik, vice-chairman of the State Planning Board.

He was speaking on the topic ‘Private Enterprise and Commodification of Education’ at the thematic session on ‘Impact of Globalisation: Changing Character of Education’ at the ongoing international seminar on ‘Democratic and Secular Education — Kerala Experience’ on the Karyavattom campus of the University of Kerala.

At a time when India is celebrating the centenary of D.D. Kosambi, it would be good to keep in mind the process of acculturation that he spoke of. The Brahmins carried technology to the tribal elements of society that were cut off from the agrarian system and in doing so succeeded in integrating the tribals into the developing agrarian caste society by putting the tribal chieftains in the upper caste and the tribal population in the lower caste. One can see Brahmins playing the role of the organic intellectuals of those times.

Later, when Macaulay set up the colonial education system, it was to create organic intellectuals of the colonial order. When Mahatma Gandhi asked people to come out of that educational system, it was aimed at rejection of the organic intellectual of the colonial order and to become the organic intellectual of a people fighting colonialism.

There is a fundamental difference between education and imparting of technical knowledge. The latter should be part and parcel of a larger programme of crafting organic intellectuals of the people fighting against the hegemony of imperialism. The distinction between education and imparting of technical education is something that gets obliterated over time, and this obliteration is an expression of the assertion of the hegemony of imperialism. The success of imperialism in the globalised era lies in the obliteration of this distinction and in identifying education with mere imparting of technical knowledge, he said.

This is something that finds an echo in the minds of the middle class in societies such as India. Additionally, when the middle class is the beneficiary of a system that is integrated into a global order, they are complicit in the process of obliteration of the distinction between education and imparting of technical knowledge.

Having democratic and secular education means changing the very perspective of education. There are two perspectives on higher education. One holds that education is a process of exchange wherein the student meets the teachers, gets some knowledge and skills that make them fit to go out into the job market. The success of the system is then determined by the success of the system’s products in the job markets. As this success can be easily measured by the salary that the products get, there comes about a linear ordering of educational institutions; an Indian Institute of Management is deemed better than another institution because the students of the former get higher salaries in the job market. As opposed to this, education should be seen as a joint activity on the part of the teachers and students on behalf of the people, for defending the interests and freedom of the people. If the role of education is to provide the organic intellectuals of the people, the people must fund education. The moment education becomes privatised, it becomes a commodity and then we move away from the perspectives that underlay our freedom struggle. What is needed is a new paradigm of education that “is informed by the need to serve the people and the process of nation building.”

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